How do you personally define a great pool workout or open water swimming session?

• Did you simply enjoy yourself?
• Did you swim particularly fast or intensely – at the end of workout or throughout the workout or on one particular set?
• Did you swim better than expected – not necessarily the fastest that you have ever been, but just pretty darn good?
• Did you feel good – euphoric in your performance or did you have an enjoyable few hours with your teammates?
• Did your coach – or teammates – compliment you?
• Did you surprise yourself – with fast swimming or just feeling strong or how far you stayed in the water?
• Did you feel crummy at the beginning of workout – and feel great at the end?
• Were you pleasantly surprised on how you handled the sets or the water temperature or the water conditions?
• Did you focus well and able to accomplish what you set out to do?

Alternatively, how do you define a poor, frustrating, or disappointing workout?

• Did you simply not enjoy yourself?
• Did you swim particularly poorly – at the beginning or end of workout or throughout?
• Are you swimming slowly or sluggishly – just feeling crummy?
• Do you feel good at the beginning of workout, but the workout did not end well?
• Did your coach – or teammates – criticize you?
• Did you surprise yourself – with a strong effort, but a slow time or lack of distance?
• Did you get stung or swallow a lot of water – or just feel seasick or coming down with a cold?
• Were you disappointed on how you handled the sets or the water temperature or the water conditions?
• Did you not accomplish what you set out to do – because of fatigue or an overuse injury or just thinking about too many things that you have to do?

Is total time, overall intensity, or actual distance of your workouts your parameters of success? Basically, do you judge your success by concrete data? Or do you judge your own success more subjectively – either on your mindset or how you feel emotionally, either euphorically or miserably? Or are your parameters somewhere in the middle – based on your perceived acclimatization to the water temperature and conditions?

Do you judge your success on each and every workout – or do you accept a week or period in its totality, knowing that some days will be slightly more successful and other days will be slightly less successful? How productive do you need to be happy with each training session?

Do you document your workouts in terms of sets, times, pace, distance, and conditions – or not? Do you write out your workouts ahead of time – in a journal to keep or on a piece of paper to discard? Or do you just set an approximate goal time and distance – within your brain – and come “close enough” at the end of your workout?

How long do you remember each workout, if you do not document in writing the details of each session? Do you forgot about it after drying off or do you dwell on your training session for the rest of the day or week or season?

Do you worry about training too much – or not enough? Do you worry about focusing on stroke technique or pace – or do you just swim and enjoy the overall experience?

If you were a competitive swimmer in your youth or younger years, do you set the same standards for yourself as you did back then? Or have your goals and approach to training either differed or transformed into something different?

Can you remember what you did in a workout 3 weeks ago – but forgot what you had for dinner last night?

Do you change the foods and/or drinks that you consume before and after your workouts, depending on each training sessions’ duration, distance, and intensity?

Do you approach – and recover from – a pool workout differently than you do a training session in an open body of water? If so, how so? Why?

Do you end each workout – or try to – with a smile?

Questions to ponder.

© 2024 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

“to educate, enthuse, and entertain all those who venture beyond the shoreline“

A World Open Water Swimming Federation project.